SpaceX Starship Will Have A Huge Viewing Window For Passengers, Elon Musk Confirms

With the first commercial spaceflight for SpaceX Starship still scheduled for 2021, SpaceX is working feverishly to meet the deadline.

In January, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted a picture of a prototype Starship (called Starship Hopper) built at the SpaceX facility in South Texas. He said Starship Hopper is a prototype for suborbital vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) tests.

“Starship test flight rocket just finished assembly at the @SpaceX Texas launch site,” tweeted Musk.

On Febuary 4, Musk tweeted, "First firing of Starship Raptor flight engine! So proud of great work by @SpaceX team!!" along with a 4 second-long video of the test fire.

Raptor is a methane-fueled rocket engine powered by cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen (LOX). It will have about twice the thrust of the Merlin 1D engine powering today’s Falcon 9 launch vehicles.

Musk has been busy tweeting videos and statements further updating his 31 million followers about Starship's progress. A tweet Thursday under the caption, "Rocket nosecone production in Texas" had a 16 second-long video showing construction of the Starship nosecone.

This tweet sparked a thread where one Musk follower, Toby Li, asked: "Will starship really have these large windows? Wouldn’t it be a structural hazard and let in solar radiation?"

Embellishing his tweet was a lovely render of a beautiful woman playing the violin aboard a spaceship as she floats weightless framed by her billowing white gown.

Musk replied by confirming a similar viewing window will be in the Starship.

"There will be a common area in the forward section with a big window like this. It will be a lot heavier than steel, but not dangerous. Consider astronauts on the moon with a very thin windowed helmet. They were fine."

Toby Li then asked: "Will Tesla armor glass be used?" Musk hasn't replied to this tweet yet.

When it stands on the launchpad in 2021, Starship/Super Heavy will be a sight to behold -- the most powerful spacecraft since the Saturn V monsters that took 12 Americans to the Moon.

In its final spaceflight configuration, the rocket will be a super heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of deploying more than 136,000 kg (150 tons) into low Earth orbit (LEO). The Starship Raptor flight engine tested February 4 will power both the reusable first stage booster (Super Heavy) and the reusable second stage rocket (Starship). Starship with its integrated payload section can carry either a human crew or cargo.

Super Heavy will be a massive, next-generation launch vehicle 63 meters long and 9 meters in diameter. It will be powered by 31 Raptor rocket engines generating 61.8 Newton meters (13,900,000 lbf) total lift-off thrust. Super Heavy will also be capable of recovery and re-use like Starship and Falcon 9.